Alps, I: Trekking poles: not just for gear-geeks, sissies and old people.

We scrambled down out of the Alps today. Not as filthy as if we’d been camping for four days, but still in pretty desperate need of showers and some quality time in the laundromat. The Alps are so so so spectacularly beautiful. None of our pictures will really do them justice, but we took a lot of them anyway. It’s really hard to capture the scale of the mountains in photographs — its just so much sheer up and down.

Our route was: a train from Innsbruck to Sharnitz (just on the Austrian side of the Austrian-German border), then hiked 4 days across the Karwendal Nature Park (essentially a national park), sleeping each night at a different hiking hut. On the 4th day we hiked out to the lake-side vacation resort Pertisau, then took a bus to Jenbach and a train back to Innsbruck. In all we averaged 11 miles* per day and 2000 vertical feet up/1200 down for the first three days, and 3300 down on our last day (most of it in the first 2 miles!)

B and I are experience hikers/backpackers, but we’re not mountaineers. We took care in planning this route not to get in over our heads, as many of these trails require climbing gear and mountaineering knowledge. So much so, in fact, that when we stopped at the OAV (Austrian Alpine Club) office in Innsbruck for a map, the guy at the desk nearly scoffed at us for even needing a map for this route. (We did, actually, require a map. Trails are well-signed but it’s still a big wilderness).

And we did pretty well. With only day packs to carry, we were able to cover 10+ miles a day, and while trekking poles would have made us faster, and hiking boots more sure-footed (there wasn’t room in the suitcases for hiking boots AND running shoes, and I do have marathon training to keep up with) the only place where we really got in over our heads in terms of experience and gear was not on the trail between hütten, but the day that we got in to our intended destination so early that we decided to summit a small nearby peak in the afternoon. It turns out I *am* a little afraid of heights, when those are heights from which I could actually fall and die. But there’s a point when you’re halfway up when it’s better not to look and just keep moving, because going back down is worse than up. (When we get home and can download pictures from our camera, we’ll post the 360 video from the top of Mahnkopf here). And there’s always a post-summit beer to steady one’s nerves afterward.

Alps, II: Die Hütten, or, What It’s Like to Share a Bedroom With 88 Austrians

I wish the US had some equivalent of the hiking huts – instead of camping at the end of each day, we hiked to these big, rustic lodges where we could recoup after a long day with a beer, a hot meal of hearty Austrian fare (for vegetarians, a rotating menu of dumplings made from potato, cheese, bread and/or noodles, or any other combo of those four ingredients. All of it delicious and TOTALLY vegetarian I’m sure — not a chance that everything was cooked in chicken stock… ha). Oh and don’t forget the butter. Everything cooked in butter. For dessert there was always apple strudel swimming in a big plate of vanilla sauce (fellow St. Catz alum, remember the puddings of our Oxford days? I found those again. I just had to go all the way to the top of the Alps).

What was I saying? Beer? Butter? Apple strudel? Oh right, hiking huts. The three we stayed at were each perched at the top of a saddle between mountains, so that each afforded 360 degree views of the valleys from which we came or were headed to next. Many climbers use the hütten as base camp from which to do more serious rock climbing. And they are huge, and popular. Over the course of the afternoon, more and more hikers (and in some cases, really hearty mountain bikers) came in from every direction, and by the end of the evening more than 100 people had arrived. The next day everyone was out, headed for their next adventure by 8am, some departing as early as 5, fueled by a breakfast of coffee, hearty brown bread with cheese, and yogurt and muesli.**

The rest of the facilities are a bit more rustic than the food, which makes sense once you learn that the hütte operators basically give the entire lodging fee back to the AV, and make their money through food sales. After keeping a VERY late night schedule in Italy we suddenly found ourselves going to sleep at 9pm and up at 6am. Some of this had to do with the sleeping quarters. Did I mention rustic? And a lot of people? At the first hütte we were lucky to get a private room with two twin beds. At the next two we were assigned bunk spaces in a barn with sleeping spaces for up to ninety people. All side-by-side, ten people in a row, with a bunk row five feet above to hold ten more people. Each person’s pack stands at the end of the bed, clotheslines overhead and outside for hanging up wet clothing, four sinks and two toilets for everyone to share. No showers. It’s very very cozy. Earplugs are a good idea. (B and I began referring to the chorus of snoring as a “snorus”). But everyone makes an effort to be polite and respectful of one another’s space and sleeping hours.***

Meals are served in a big common room, which affords opportunity to get to know your fellow hikers. We were limited by our language skills, but one night we ended up sitting at a large common table trading brain teasers (the “two guards stand before two doors, one is the gate to heaven. one guard is a liar and one is a truth-teller… ” sort of thing) with several other hikers. The group was made up of ourselves, three men (who speak the Persian of their childhood amongst themselves, two of whom now live in Germany and speak German, one who lives in London and speaks English), three women (Austrian, one who speaks English and German and two who speak only German). Every puzzle was conducted in three different languages, with different vectors of who could speak directly to whom. And the next day everyone was sent off down the hiking path with another puzzle to chew on as we walked.

Alps, III: The Sights and Sounds of the Alps

Apparently we timed our trip very well, as locals told us that it was only about two weeks ago that the cold wet weather ended. We encountered a few patches of snow, but otherwise it was all green alpine meadows and wildflowers. No rain, only a few puffy white clouds, cool at night but actually quite warm for hiking. (I have a galaxy of new freckles to show for my efforts). And soooo many wildflowers, of so many varieties – pink, purple,yellow, baby blue, red, orange. The meadows have soft, deep green grass, and you can literally lay down in a meadow for a nap. Just watch out for the occasional cowpie.

Because that was the other surprising thing. The adorable baby cows! At the end of the first day’s hike we reached the saddle, walked through a gate and discovered ourselves in a meadow full of alpine cows. Each one of which is wearing a leather collar with a cowbell around her neck. It turns out that the sound of the Alps isn’t the wind whistling through the trees or through mountain passes, it’s not those big alpine horns or yodeling or any such nonsense — it’s the clamor of fifty cowbells all clanking at the same time, ringing out across the valleys.

I’ve always thought that cows, when viewed up close, were the dirtiest, grossest animals, covered in their own shit, with flies settling in the corners of their eyes – but I realized that it’s cows in barnyards that are the dirtiest animals. These alpine cows were surprisingly clean, healthy, and cute. It helped reinforce my meat-eating policies — which is to say that I don’t object to eating animals, but I do object to eating animals that are raised in inhumane commercial environments. We tried to tell these guys how lucky they had it, but I’m not sure they could hear us over the clank of cowbells.

Alps, IV: The Everywhere Triplets

The hiking route we selected was a popular one, and frequently we ran into the same people several days in a row. Our hands-down favorite had to be the parents traveling with their 7-year old triplets.

On the first day, while still on the valley floor, we noticed a family hiking along the path with three small boys in matching red caps. Later that night we saw them at Karwendelhaus. We were impressed that they’d made it all the way up the hill. They couldn’t have been cuter with their matching trekking pants, three pairs of tiny crocks clipped onto the back of three tiny backpacks, and of courses the little red baseball caps.

The next day, they turned up at Falkonhütte and were assigned the bunks directly below us where they slept for 12 straight hours. The third night, they were in the bunk spaces right next to us. We basically slumber-partied with these triplets all the way across the Karwendel.

That’s right: we’re exactly as tough as 7-year old German triplets.

When we arrived at the third hütte, there was no sign of the triplets. We figured they had bailed out at Eng, the midday stop and a popular place to begin/end this particular hike. The route up from Eng to Lamsenjochhütte had been pretty tough. But sure enough, 2 hours after we arrived, we looked up to see 3 little red caps trotting along the path, completely unconcerned abut the nearly-sheer dropoff on one side of the path that had us clinging to the mountainside when we crossed it.

The next morning we hit the trail only a few minutes ahead of the triplets. All the way down (2000 vertical feet of twisty switchbacks), we could look up and see the little red caps, alarmingly, gaining on us. That is, until we hit the valley floor and encountered a petting zoo and playground at the first alpine village. Surely that would slow them down enough to allow us to keep our lead, right? What 7-year old can resist miniature goats who eat out of your hand AND a trampoline?? We did, in fact, leave the triplets in the dust after that. We arrived at Pertisau, and enjoyed a beer at a lake-side cafe like the petty triumphant adults that we are.

An hour later, when we hoisted our dusty, sore muscles out of our chairs, we discovered the triplets enjoying ice cream sundaes at the table directly behind us. If they turn up next to us on a train platform in Berlin, or Chicago, I will no longer be surprised. Creeped out, maybe, but not surprised.

*The Austrians don’t seem to measure hiking distances in, well, distance, but rather time. When asking “how far?” the answer was always given in hours. We assumed there’s a national hiking-pace standard and that one can calculate distance backwards from there. Being mere mortals, we usually took the time estimate and added 15% for ourselves to complete it. That seemed to be abut right.

 
**DO NOT ask for a side of honey to go with your muesli, BTW, unless you want to create an international incident. Apparently that is not how they do it in Austria.

***Plastic-bag rattling-guy, go back to the youth hostel from which you came.